


Saudade and Tanzanite

by LayMeDownToSpace (IGotTooMuchLove)



Series: Gems That Connect Us [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blade of Marmora Keith (Voltron), Blue Paladin Allura (Voltron), Can be seen as: Platonic Keith/Lance (Voltron), Can be seen as: Romantic Keith/Lance (Voltron), Canon Compliant, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Baggage, Feelings, Feelings Realization, Gen, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Minor POV Allura (Voltron), Non-Canon Relationship, POV Lance (Voltron), Post-Episode: s4e01 Code of Honor, Red Paladin Lance (Voltron), Season/Series 04, Slightly Pinning Lance (Voltron), Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 19:06:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12564184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IGotTooMuchLove/pseuds/LayMeDownToSpace
Summary: The small wrinkles on the folded sheets were those insignificantly important marks that had helped Lance recognize who lived here. He didn't try to look any symbolism in that but... Keith was the small wrinkles that he had tried to make disappear and team Voltron were the sheets. He had left a mark, wanted he that or not.





	Saudade and Tanzanite

**Author's Note:**

> Saudade [soh-dah-duh] - a deep emotional state of melancholic longing for a person or thing that is absent.
> 
> Not beta-read. WE DIE LIKE MEN, PEOPLE.  
> After watching S4 I had this idea stuck inside my head. I needed to write it down. Here is the result.

The very moment Keith decides to take a last look at them and turns around to leave, Lance feels like screaming. Not the muffled, frustrated or inner type but full vocal cord torture kind of screaming. Every cell in his body tells him to do something, anything to stop Keith from leaving, but he just stares at the fabric of the boy’s new uniform. Even though it looks very complimenting on him, Lance hates it with a burning passion. He hates it more than the stupid red jacket that Keith would always wear. No, he actually likes the jacket, he just doesn’t understand it.

Everything was wrong. Coran, Allura, Hunk and Pidge weren’t supposed to cry like they wouldn’t see him in years. He kind of wants to join their crying party. Shiro wasn’t supposed to just smile, agree and let Keith go. He had been the one saying that they needed to stick together. This was the opposite of everything. Shiro was being a hypocrite and nobody is calling him out for it, not even Keith. Lance himself wasn’t supposed to feel like his face was about to break into a grimace from facing the fact that a crucial member of the team has decided to leave them for some unspoken reason.

_Why?_

_Don’t ask ‘why’. Stop him._

_Am I the other part of the reason you’re leaving?_

_Don’t just stand there. Move. Stop him._

Lance didn’t hear what the others were saying. The echoes of his thought were louder and going in circles. He had to do something else than just listen to them. Lance had to act on it.

However, he just stares at the dying smile on Keith’s face as he turns away. The boy rarely smiled but seeing it just vanish like that was even worse. Though Keith had said that it was his own choice, Lance suddenly feels like all his weeks of worrying for their, now ex, team leader had manifested into something. The manifestation was Keith leaving them.

Lance wasn’t a psychologist or a physiognomist, he wouldn’t say that he has ever been very good at reading people but the sharpshooter had enough knowledge about simple body language. He saw something that contradicted. That wasn’t a look of somebody determined to work in another group beside them to defeat the Galran Empire. Keith looked sad, defeated, lonely, and something else that Lance couldn’t figure out.

_He looks like a man who is saying his last goodbye to his loved ones before going leaving for a suicide mission._

That’s what his mind told him. That’s what his heart told him as well. Lance had worn a similar face before every difficult mission as well. Every mission where they expected casualties. The only difference between them was that Lance had always been better at hiding the emotions that nobody was supposed to see.

Lance doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t really say anything meaningful. He lets Keith go while every part of him protests. The team lets that door close with a silent hiss. Lance reminds himself that their Keith was going to be alright, that he won’t do anything reckless.

He regrets his choice while they’re on mission. Lance bites his tongue until he tastes blood inside his mouth. He nearly calls Shiro by Keith’s name.

\---

Allura never considered herself to be very observant. Curious? Always. Observant? Not so much. Being observant had been Coran’s job. Well, mostly, because the mice did the rest of it. However after Keith left the team she had felt something shift in the team. At first, she believed it to be just her imagination but after phoebs passed by, that intense and heavy atmosphere only intensified. Nobody seemed down. Pidge was in cloud nine… whatever that really meant. The princess still had a difficult time understanding most of Earth origin saying, but the princess knew that something was off.

When Coran started to come up with weird ideas for the coalition shows, Allura saw right away that acting was something that Lance greatly enjoyed. She dared to think that it was his second nature. Not only was he great at it, the princess was amazed with his organisation skills in the area as well. Allura experienced his disappointment in her firsthand when she accidentally ran into Red’s side while on formation practice. He sighed dramatically, gave a strict comment and forgave her. Even though Lance was especially good in ‘theater’, as Hunk called it, she still managed to see the changes in his posture and tone.

Although everyone had been affected by Keith’s absence in their own way, she saw that their second-in-command had changed the most. Of course, he was living and breathing the ‘Loverboy’ character that Coran had given him but from her point of view, he was lacking something. Lance was still being loud, and sometimes annoying, but Allura didn’t see the usual spark in his eyes. Especially, when she would play as Keith on the shows. There would always be that slight disappointment on his face but she could see that it wasn’t directed at her. She was now certain that Lance was what had been causing that heavy atmosphere.

He didn’t flirt with most of the alien ladies the same way anymore. Lance actually barely flirted anymore. She dared to think that he was running out of those pick-up lines, thought the princess didn’t understand how they were supposed to pick somebody up. Those phrases weren’t exactly mood lifting.

From her point of view, everything that he did felt forced, just like his smile. Not only on the shows for others aliens to join the Voltron coalition but back inside the castle, where they didn’t need to pretend in front of each other. Lance kept on acting and Allura hadn’t seen him give anyone a genuine smile for a while now.

 _He hasn’t smiled since Keith had left,_ thought Allura one day as she walked around the space mall on their free day. She stopped dead in her tracks. _Of course. How didn’t I think of this before? They were just starting to get along and then Keith suddenly left. I was still thinking of them as rivals. Lance misses him._

Even though Lance performance on the shows and missions hadn’t been falling behind, she had become worried for his emotional well-being. Allura didn’t know if she was the right person for him to talk with but the current blue paladin was determined to try. The princess was about to ask Coran through the communication channels if he knew where the red paladin went but when she reached the main fountain Allura stopped herself. Lance was sitting on the edge of the fountain, away from the other visitors of the space well.

When she came closer, Allura noticed Lance holding something in his hands. It was small, purple and it fractured light at a certain angle. Whatever it was, Lance for once had bought something for himself other than skincare products, and she believed to know what it was.

“Who’s the lucky person?” asked Allura making the red paladin jump a little. She couldn’t help but chuckle a little. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” This was the first time she had seen him this relaxed and paying attention on something else than the coalition work.

“You?” the boy smirked wiggling his eyebrows at her. Under normal circumstances, Allura would have already groaned or frowned at him but Lance still lacked the usual fire in his eyes. All that she managed to do was sigh. She knew he was trying to be his usual self but both knew it wasn’t working. The smirk fell just as quickly as it appeared. “Why do you ask?”

“May I?” Allura extended her hand as she sat down. Without much thought, Lance handed her the small raw crystal. Since he had it in his hands for a while the crystal was still warm. Allura turned it around in her palm for a bit. “What you’re looking at is a purple Klepritex. At least, I think that’s a Klepritex.”

She held the crystal between her thumb and index fingers against a light and tried to look inside. Maybe she had been wrong? The lines looked a bit different from what her father and Coran had described to her.

“Back on Altea they were extremely rare gemstones. Especially, the purple ones. Purple symbolizes unconditional and everlasting love. The smallest amount of visible dust presented on any type of jewelry was considered a betrothal gift but…” Allura frowned and handed back the crystal to Lance. “How were you able to pay for this much? We don’t have that much GAK to pay for even a 100.000th part of it.”

“Actually, this is a Tanzanite,” said Lance tossing it in the air. It shined for a moment before the sharpshooter caught it and putting in his jacket’s inner pocket. “I don’t know if its structure is actually the same as your Klepritex but back on Earth it’s also considered extremely rare. I didn’t pay anything. The owner of the Earth shop let me choose and gave it to me for free.”

“Didn’t you say your favorite color is blue?” Allura raised an eyebrow.

She knew that he had a certain fascination with the color. At first, she believed it was because he used to pilot the Blue lion. However, the princess found out that Earth’s oceans weren’t yellow like in Altea. They were blue and Lance had always been surrounded by that color. The princess came to the conclusion that for Lance it associated with home.

“Yes?” Lance raised an eyebrow himself. He was starting to get suspicious with all the questions. He was becoming confused by the minute with where this conversation was going.

“Why did you choose purple then?”

Allura had a slight hunch. Although it might not have been the same gem that she talked about, it was obvious that the sharpshooter didn’t know the meaning behind purple. To most it associated with the Galran Empire now but she still remembered the festivals and wedding with purple all around. However, the color reminded her of their former black paladin. Purple reminded her of Keith, and Allura was almost certain that Lance thought of the crystal as well.

“No rea-”

“Lance, we all miss Keith,” interrupted Allura. Lance looked more tired than usually when she mentioned their friend’s name. The princess was certain that Lance finally showed his true face and not the one meant for shows.

“Me? Miss him?” Lance let out a laugh, trying to smile but it turns into a grimace. He sounded a bit too hollow. “Yeah, and I’m the Black Paladin.”

“If denying makes it easier for you, if you got that gem because it reminded you of him, it’s alright. We cope with Keith’s absence in our own way.”

“I worry about you, Lance. I know you’re hurting” said Allura putting a hand on his shoulder. “Please, don’t overwork yourself just to forget.”

“I’ll see back at the castle,” Lance took her hand from his should and got up. He knew that Allura meant well, but he didn’t want that conversation to happen. Not at the moment.

\---

Lance crosses the threshold and the door closes with a silent hiss. It takes about half of a tick for him to realize that he just had walked into the wrong room. His hearing was trained to the usual hissing of his door, so the first clue had been that the sound was off. This was the first time that mixed up the doors and walk back to somebody else's room since they got here.

The sharpshooter finally lifts his gaze from the ground and looks around. Lance finds it actually strange just how much energy such a small yet simple task takes away from him. He only needed to make a few muscles inside his eyes move and the action already had made the boy tired. He’ll wonder what kind of witchcraft this later.

The second clue - all the furniture was in the opposite side of the room. A mirror version of his own but with some small differences. The shelves were empty, no sight of the tubes, bottles and other type containers of skincare products that he got on the team's last trip to the space mall. If not for the neatly folded sheets and small pillow on the bed, Lance would have thought that this was one of the many rooms in the Castle of Lions that hadn’t been lived in. The small wrinkles on the folded sheets were those insignificantly important marks that had helped Lance recognize who lived here. He didn't try to look any symbolism in that but... Keith was the small wrinkles that he had tried to make disappear and team Voltron were the sheets. He had left a mark, wanted he that or not.

Lance takes the red leather jacket off the hook on the wall to his left and walks towards the bed. The sharpshooter didn’t have to look to know that it would be there. It had been there the last time he entered the room to talk about the number of paladins problem. That hook had been for Keith’s jacket only.

On the day Keith joined the Marmorites, he had left the team only with the blade that had belonged to his mother in hand. It had been only logical that he would leave the rest of his belongings here but something murmured in the back of Lance’s mind saying that it wasn’t the case. Not this time. This was the only thing that Keith had left behind.

Every step makes him feel like his legs are filled with lead and that somebody has increased the gravity in the room. Lance knows it's neither. He was just tired. Anything else had to be a lie. Lance had to convince that it was the honest truth. To the universe, the team and himself. Especially, himself because ‘the show must go on’. He had to convince the team that still was the happy goofball. Obviously, he wasn’t fooling Allura.

He didn’t know much about space physics, there still was so much unknown, but there already had been a good layer of dust on the jacket. He didn't have to activate the lights in the room to see it, he felt dust collecting on the tips of his fingers as he touched the cracks in the dyed leather.

Lance doesn't dare to sit on the bed so the sharpshooter drops down on the floor with one side of his body leaning against the hard frame of the Altean-made bed. The quick journey to the floor isn't a comfortable one but he barely feels any discomfort. He doesn’t want to disturb some old ghosts of the past by moving anything but Lance knows just him being here was too much. He already had stirred something. Only he wasn't sure if he stirred something in himself or the empty room.

Lance closes his eyes and lets out a sigh. It sounds hollow and tired even to his ears. Maybe Allura was right to worry. He doesn’t know why it came out like that and for the moment he doesn’t care. For once, he's tired of keeping up the ‘Loverboy’ Lance bravado that most people believed to be real. He knew the others on the team didn't believe it themselves but Lance saw worry on their faces. Even when he attempted to flirt with Allura, the sharpshooter didn’t receive the usual stinkface but made the princess voice her worried directly. The stinging feeling behind his eyelids doesn’t help with his situation right now but Lance keeps on tells himself that he’s just tired.

“I’m just tired,” whispers Lance tightening his grip. He repeats the phrase again and again, until words lose their meaning. Lance doesn’t notice how tears start silently roll down his face, how tight his grip on Keith’s jacket becomes, how the lingering smell on it only makes his finally sob.

Allura had been right.

The coalition work… it was Lance’s best attempt to forget so many things. His insecurities, worries, fears, the fact that war was their next-door neighbour, that somewhere in the universe people were dying, that there was a clock set for doomsday and they never know when the last battle will happen. Oh, how he wished for those things actually to never happen.

For months, what he wanted the most was to forget the ache inside his chest. That kind of feeling that made him wonder if he’s dying, that his heart and lungs were failing him. The kind of ache which had made him want to cry and scream for hours until his voice was completely gone. The actual number of how many times he experienced it and wanted to just give in was lost at around sixty. Since the moment Keith left, Lance felt an ache that he couldn’t understand and had tried to force it away over sixty times. Lance was certain that he would have reached two hundred if not for what happened today. He finally broke.

He made a mistake by getting that tanzanite crystal. Thinking that it would be like carrying a small piece of Keith with… Lance only made things worse from himself.

Lance just wanted to forget the impact that the formal black paladin still has on him. How he wishes to see those purple eyes, those brows frowning at him for saying something stupid, to hear his smooth voice and shy laugh again. He wants everything and nothing. To cherish and forget.

Lance tried to forget that he cares, that he still trusts him. Lance tries to deny that he had fallen for him and convince himself that he doesn’t miss him.

_I don’t miss him._

"Come back home, please," whispers Lance into the room. “Please.”

_I miss him._

_I miss you, Keith._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.  
> Comments/reviews are always welcome/appreciated.
> 
> If anyone is wondering... Klepritex doesn't exist. You won't find it on google or anywhere besides this fanfic.


End file.
